Originally posted by Business Korea
Seedstars World (SSW) recently held its regional startup contest which was last year won by Flitto, who went on to win the Global final in Geneva last winter. This year's Seoul winner,Krowd Pop, aims to follow up this monumental first success in similar style.
KrowdPop is a K-Pop concert service provider that has utilized crowdsourcing to take the risk out of holding overseas pop concerts by asking fans to locate events. After successfully beating out the competition they have been invited to Geneva in February next year to compete with other regional winners from over 30 cities in emerging markets around the world. Innovative video advertisement service provider Easiaid received the second prize, and Chatting Cat took the third prize with its chatting application that provides language-conversion services.
Richard Choo, CEO of the winning Krowd Pop, said, “This was a great event, and it was a pleasure participating. We look forward to Geneva, as it will be the perfect platform to reach a European audience, at a time when K-Pop is beginning to really take hold in the region.”
SSW was founded with the goal to encourage competition among venture companies, contributing to the growth of new companies. In 2013, they held their first round of global competitions in 20 cities. The final winner at the Geneva final was Korea-based Flitto, who's energetic CEO Simon Lee wowed the local crowd and glistened with his pitch. This year, the competition has expanded to more than 30 countries. In the final global competition, all the regional winners get to compete for US$500,000 of equity investment.
Founder of SSW Alisee de Tonnac, stated, “Seedstars World will hold its worldwide competition every year, and we are expecting to grow exponentially to all the corners of the world and put all the fast growing startup scenes on the map. Indeed, our goal is to create a network for quality entrepreneurs around the world and help entrepreneurs, accelerators/incubators, co-working spaces, and investors to interact with one another.”
D.CAMP’s Jason Chang s “Thanks to both Swiss Embassy and SSW to make this year’s Seoul competition at D.CAMP a one-of-a-kind experience for everyone. We wish the best of luck for Krowd Pop to replicate Flitto’s success in the final event in Geneva.”
beSUCCESS was also a partner of the event this year, with Global Director Nathan Milliard appearing as one of the jurors. "It was great to have been part of the team that chose Flitto last year and we have high hopes for KrowdPop," he said.
The Swiss Embassy in Korea's Science & Technology Office, also sponsored the event and provided a stunning Swiss faire for attendees of the Seoul event. Other sponsors include Freitag, with Business Korea joining as a media partner.
The next stop of the tour is Seedstars Bangkok on the 8th of August. It then continues on to Ho Chi Minh, Manila, Jakarta, Singapore, Shanghai, Sydney, Mexico City, Bogotá, Lima, Santiago, Buenos Aires, and Sao Paulo.
